Help shape the future of transit in Cochrane

About the Public Transit Study

After five years of service delivery, we're re-evaluating COLT's operating model. This review includes technical assessments, public transit best practices and feedback from two rounds of community engagement which reached over 1,200 residents. The goal is to explore what the future of public transit could look like within varying budget parameters.

Phase 1 Engagement

Phase 1 engagement which ran from May 17 to June 9 collected your experiences and expectations through pop-up events, workshops and surveys (both online and hardcopy).

Through this work we learned:

• COLT is performing well as an on-demand service, averaging 5 riders per hour, but some trip requests go unfulfilled due to demand.
• Compared to similar communities, Cochrane's cost per trip is lower, but service hours (evenings and weekends) are more limited.
• You expressed a desire for:
  • More reliable, useful transit
  • Safe, age-friendly, and accessible travel
  • A financially sustainable system
  • Transit that supports community growth and other programs

The full What We Heard report for Phase 1 available to review.

Phase 2 Engagement

Phase 2 engagement dug deeper into potential solutions, focusing on service principles that consider what we've heard from you, standard transit practices and an evaluation of COLT's current service. This round gathered additional feedback to understand what service you would choose and your willingness to invest through rider fees or taxes.

The principles under consideration included:

• Frequency: How often buses arrive at stops, affecting wait times.
• Coverage: The extent of areas served.
• Span: Total hours of operation, including evenings and weekends.

The full What We Heard report for Phase II is available to review.

Next steps

The What We Heard report from Phase II showed that 71% of respondents support modest tax and fare increases to expand services, such as more buses, longer hours and Sunday operations.

The next step for COLT is a hybrid model of fixed routes and on-demand service. On October 15, Administration presented different service scenarios based on your feedback and their budget impacts to Council. Council has directed Administration to come back with their proposal during budget deliberations. Once Council approves a direction, a detailed service design and implementation plan will be developed as part of the draft budget.